| | | | | | | | | | | | | The Lie About Elizabeth Warren | | | | | | | | | Everyone was talking about pregnancy discrimination this week. I'd normally be in favor. Though technically illegal, pregnancy discrimination is rampant in the 2019 work world. Women are frequently forced out of their jobs when they get pregnant. At the higher-income level, they're "mommy tracked," forever deemed unambitious and unworthy of promotion.
This is an urgent economic problem, considering that women are the primary or sole breadwinners in 40% of all households with children under the age of 18. When you're pregnant and fired, your economic prospects are drastically slashed. Think about it: You're about to undergo a serious medical procedure that requires recovery time (aka childbirth), you may have just lost your health insurance and you're not exactly in prime position for job hunting.
And, indeed, pregnancy discrmination throws women — especially at the lower end of the income scale — into poverty. At the higher end, it helps perpetuate the gender pay gap. I've written about it a lot.
But this week, we're talking about pregnancy discrimination because of a dumb story/smear involving presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).
Warren was a schoolteacher in New Jersey in the 1970s, and when she became pregnant, she had to leave her job. There's an alleged debate over whether she was actually fired or whether she "resigned" from her position.
But this is a distinction without a difference. Things were terrible for working women in the 1970s, and the teaching profession was ground zero for bias against expecting mothers. Back then, you couldn't teach while pregnant. The end. They may not have called it "firing" because that's just the way it worked.
A few years after Warren left her job, the federal law changed — thanks to teachers who sued over their dismissals. My colleagues Molly Redden and Rebecca Klein have the full story.
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